Matthew Woolen is a master pastry chef and has worked in a variety of Seattle restaurants, including gastropub Old Sage, Zhu Dang, and a gluten-free restaurant called Capitol Cider.

Matthew Woolen

When I was a kid, I loved eating Ding Dongs, the little, foil-wrapped circles of cream-filled chocolate cake, glazed with a thin chocolate shell. They have everything you want in a sweet treat: a range of contrasting textures, a double dose of chocolate, a combination of cake and candy in one bite.When I started thinking about coming up with a homemade Ding Dong recipe, I went out and bought a pack of them to see how they measured up to my memories of eating them as a kid. Unfortunately, they didn’t: What I remember as a great treat turned out to be artificial-tasting and waxy. So instead of mimicking Ding Dongs exactly, I decided to make Ding Dong-like treats in which each element has both fantastic flavor and texture.Since it’s fall and pumpkin spice is in the air, doing a Ding Dong with a pumpkin theme made sense to me: pumpkin goes great with chocolate, especially when paired with warm spices, and adding some pumpkin and spice to the creamy filling seemed pretty straightforward. Piping the pumpkin mousse into the cakes is a little tricky, but the method I use ensures there’s an ample and even amount of filling in each Ding Dong. Instead of injecting the filling into the cakes, I use a ring mold to punch a small hole in the bottom of each portion, hollow the interior out further with a small spoon, then fill up the cavity with the pumpkin-flavored Italian meringue. I trim down the punched-out circles of cake and use them as plugs to seal the filling into each portion. After coating the cake in a chocolate glaze (made with a combination of coating chocolate, which eliminates the need for tempering, dark chocolate, for flavor, and refined coconut oil, which helps set the glaze when cooled), it looks entirely seamless.The result is a treat every Ding Dong wishes it could be: tender, moist cake with a creamy and delicious filling, enrobed in a glaze that’s rich with dark chocolate flavor.

Homemade Pumpkin Ding Dongs